Acral Mutilation Syndrome Carrier ESS Working Lines

[Sgurr]

From The Kennel Club website (MyKC.org.uk)
DNA test - AMS
Acral Mutilation Syndrome
Details about the disease

AMS is the self-mutilation of limb extremities linked with located insensitivity to pain
Clinical signs

Clinical signs include severe licking of footpads and paws to the point of bleeding, ulceration. Auto-amputation of the claws, footpads, and digits through self-mutilation can also occur. Lesions (wounds) on limbs and inability to feel pain on distal limbs are also clinical signs. Age of onset ranges from 3 to 12 months.
How it is inherited

The disease is described as an autosomal recessive condition. This means that a dog must inherit two copies of an abnormal gene (one from its mother and one from its father) before its health is affected. A dog that inherits only one copy of the abnormal gene (from its mother or its father) will have no signs of the disease, but will be a carrier and may pass the gene on to any offspring.


The first working lines ESS Carrier has been posted in the February 2020 KC DNA test listings - Kingbraggers Sunrise
All the big names of twenty years ago are there, on both sides of the pedigree, Moonreed, Rytex, Kettlestang, Badgercourt, Birdrowe, Toonarmy, Tawnyhill, Rosebay, Megstone, Housty, Sunstar, Sunnybrae, Windmillwood etc. Remember PRA Cord 1 was only in ESS show lines......that's not the situation ten years on....

For those who health test, please be aware of this new listing and check the pedigrees of your dogs if you have not tested for AMS

[EssGrouse]

Theres also alot of non affix stuff in there, more so than big kennel names Enid.

Also there are 11 pages of clears with all those big kennel names in too, there is 1 page of carriers and only 1 of them seem to be a working strain.

I'm not inciting it gets ignored but there is also no need for a major panic, from about 100 + clear dogs theres 1 carrier who has alot of unknown dogs in its pedigree.

[westcountry]

Nothing there to worry about really.

[Judy]

Not yet, if enough breeders stick their heads in the sand it'll be ok. Were any health tests done on the parents of your last litter Westcountry? I guess its a bit like saying there was only one case of Leptospirosis last winter, that I heard of, so I wont bother paying for that vaccination.
Looking at it in a different way, if everybody that bred a litter of ESS were to do all the gene tests for, maybe, three generations you could eradicate those defective gene from the breed. If nobody tests for it until its spread throughout the breed then it'll take much more careful breeding to be rid of it.

[EssGrouse]

There are hundreds of tested clear dogs on that register from the best kennels too Judy. People are testing.

[Sgurr]

Yes, but I am so much older than you Liam so I remember when Meadowdale Heather was the first PRA Cord - 1 Carrier in working lines. Yes, people said, there was the problem but only in show lines. Not so. We now have 45 pages of PRA Cord 1 Clears and 11 pages of Carriers and the working lines are breeding Affecteds because they will not test. The show lines have eradicated Fuco, the working lines are breeding carriers from less than top dogs - why? With AMS you say Liam there is a lot of non-affix stuff in there, but I disagree, actually very few that do not have a Stud Book Number or bred from one FTCh parent. It is not the affix, or lack of, that counts it is the breeding. No, there is no need to panic but a need to be aware if you are concerned about health testing. Also, for the record, the first occurance of what we now call AMS was reported in ESS in 1999. The reference is Mason, L.T, The occurence and pedigree analysis of a hereditary sensory neuropathy in the English Springer Spaniel. Am. Col. Vet. Dermatatol. 15 -25 1999.

[EssGrouse]

Thanks for the response Enid. I think you know my uptake on it. For those who don't then here.

Whats most concerning for me and I can agree to a degree about health testing but is those breeders who then after health testing go on to breed with fear. Even if they have a clear bitch they disregard carrier dogs without a second though, even if they compliment their bitch the best. To name a current few, FT Ch Wyndhill Brett of Stagsden, OFTW Bryngwhryd Bruno, FT Ch Hollydrive Kurt, I can name at least 3 more current FT Ch who are also carriers. Yet disregarded by the masses, simply on this basis.

This is where its wrong for me, people who don't have a clue what they are doing as such, just following the trend. We will lose good lines over health testing and where does it stop? When we have that many test that every dog tested will fail at least 1 test? They just keep churning these test out year after year, isnt there 4 types of PRA but yet we only test for 1? Why?

We test eyes, so a dog can pass 5 years in a row, be bred from then fail on the 6th year? Why?

If what has been said true about old dogs for instance, FT Ch Rytex Rod, FT Ch Cheweky Wolf, FT Ch Whitehope Liquorice all being carriers and PRA being such a big thing in Springers, where are all these affect pups because you can bet your bottom dollar from the 646 Litters they sired between them with a total of 3861 puppies, I'm yet to speak to anyone who said they had a blind puppy from them? And also if they were carriers surley they mated carrier bitches within all those matings? Where are these affected pups? No one has ever seen um.

This isn't a rant at you btw, I hope someone who is thinking about breeding reads this and thinks about whats being said here. DO not breed based on health test, yes make an informed choice but don't disregard carrier dogs. I know alot of folk who have still used Kurt and he has produced the goods but i know people who have bred from their carrier bitch to a clear dog, tested all the pups and only kept the clears even though, they wernt looking the best in the litter, WTF, pointless !!

Anyhow rant over, just gets to me all this and people being blinded by health test and ability goes out of the window. Id rather have a class carrier than clear plug.

[munstyman]

Great post (rant ) Liam. Whilst I support health testing in principle, it can become divisive when it is taken as the` be all and end all' of breeding dogs. I see similarities with the splitting of breeds into `show' and `working' types where breeders focus on just one aspect they are interested in, and not the `whole dog' .
Like you say its about making an informed choice and balancing the available information. Too much information can be as bad as not enough, its the middle ground we need to keep breeders in Hats off to those that care enough about the breeds to do the leg work for us lazy B****rs

[WGD]

I'll start worrying when I start seeing, or even hearing about, ill dogs...

[westcountry]

I'll start worrying when I start seeing, or even hearing about, ill dogs...

Agreed. I actually met a chap on a shoot just the other week who had had to have his family pet/beating dog put down due to AMS. It was a cocker. What he described was truly upsetting. The poor dog was 2 and a half years old and had eaten its back foot off and part of its tail. All very upsetting for him and his family, not to mention the poor dog. I had never heard of a case before and hope I never hear of another.